Immortal
by Spikerox
Summary: Sequal to Holidays. Buffy and Spike are married but when Buffy gets ill one day it opens up a whole new world for them and a little girl named Thea.
1. Chapter One

Immortal  
  
Sequel to Holidays. You don't have to read it to understand but it give's the background. Set a few months after the couple return from Florida.  
  
B/S Fluff  
  
Buffy is a bit OOC.  
  
After some insulting reviews I have decided to say here that I am only 14 so my writing is not as good as some adults, grammar is my weak point.  
  
If you want to use any of my fanfics on other websites please do just email me at spikerox@yahoo.co.uk to let me know.  
  
I don't own any of the characters except Thea; she's all mine. Oh, and some of the kids in the later chapters. You know which ones are mine, they're the ones not in the show.  
  
Some of the translation's in the later chapters may not be perfect as I have had to translate most of it from friends doing GCSE in that language and dictionaries.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Spike sighed heavily and climbed in through Buffy's open window. She had stomped off to stay the night at her Mom's after the fight.  
  
"Look pet, I'm sorry." He grovelled. Buffy stayed still, lying on her bed, back to him. They had had a big fight about Spike calling Xander 'whelp'. It had all, well mostly, been his fault.  
  
"I'm really sorry, I'll try to call him, W- Xander from now on. See, I said it." Buffy stayed still. "Aren't you gonna say anything?" He almost yelled, pacing back a forth in front of the window. "Pet, there's not much more I can say but I'm sorry!" His was losing his temper with her. "Fine be like that!"  
  
He started to climb back out of the window when he heard a small whimper. He doubled back and knelt by her face beside the bed.  
  
"What's up pet?" He asked, the anger melting away from his body. He could never say mad at her for long.  
  
"Cold." She murmured weakly after a while. "So cold.want to be warm." Spike felt her forehead.  
  
"Jeez Buffy, you're nearly as cold as me. And it's a heat wave outside." Then he realised the obvious. "You're sick! I'll go get your Mum."  
  
He jumped up and ran out into the hallway, something was very wrong. "JOYCE!" He yelled as loud as he could, knocking on her bedroom door; luckily, Dawn was staying with her Dad for the weekend so he didn't need to worry about waking her up. A few seconds later Joyce opened the door.  
  
"What is it Spike?" She said sleepily. She blinked a few times as if just realising whom was standing there.  
  
"Buffy, I think she's really sick," he said, panic clear in his voice.  
  
Joyce nodded and ran down the hallway as fast as she could, Spike walking behind her. She sat down next to her oldest daughter on the bed.  
  
"Buffy, what's wrong?"  
  
"Cold." Buffy whispered. Joyce lent over and touched her daughter's cheek. As she did this Buffy cried out in pain. Joyce immediately pulled her hand away revealing a red-hot patch.  
  
"Oh god, I'm so sorry Buffy!" Joyce bit down on her lip to stop herself from crying; she had hurt her baby. "I need to phone an ambulance!"  
  
"No," Spike said solemnly from the doorway.  
  
"She needs medical attention!" Joyce yelled.  
  
"This isn't medical!" Spike said in the same flat tone. "It's magical, someone did this to her." He sat down next to Buffy and took her hands in his, he checked up and down her arms.  
  
"What are you doing?"  
  
"Checking to see if this was a curse, there could be a black mark on her arms if it was simple curse anyway."  
  
"How come you can touch my baby and I can't" Joyce sobbed, tears started to fall down her cheeks.  
  
"I have no body temperature." Spike guessed. "It could be to do with the intense heat against intense cold, like ice burning in air."  
  
"Willow.Giles." Buffy whispered.  
  
"I'll go phone them," Spike said standing up.  
  
"No, I'll go." Joyce said disappearing downstairs. She didn't want to stay there, looking at that horrid red mark she'd made on her daughter's face.  
  
Spike shifted so her head rest on his lap and started stroking her hair. "You're gonna be fine Pet. Your friends are gonna work out what's wrong with you and make you all better again."  
  
Buffy whimpered and fell asleep in his arms.  
  
~~~~~~~~  
  
"She's in her room," Spike heard Joyce say from downstairs. The sound of thudding up the stairs echoed to the bedroom. The door swung open and Willow, Xander and Giles poured into the room.  
  
Buffy was still sleeping softly and didn't notice her friends entering. He mouthed at them to be quiet, she needed her sleep to get better again.  
  
"Oh God, Buffy!" Willow yelled. Nobody else had noticed that the rise and fall of the slayer's chest had stopped. She sank to her knees by the bed. "Buffy! Not again, please not again!"  
  
Willow shock her best friends shoulders desperately, not wanting to believe that she had yet again died. Spike just stared at the sleeping slayer in amazement. There was no way that she could be dead, he would have noticed; wouldn't he? if her heartbeat had suddenly died down? If the only sound in the room, her breathing, just stopped. He wasn't that unobservant. Was he?  
  
"Buff!" Xander yelled, finally realising what had happened. "No, not again!" He joined Willow by the bed, both crying, hugging her limp body like a rag doll.  
  
Buffy's eyes fluttered open.  
  
"Hi guys" She said sleepily, not realising what her friend thought. Willow stared up into her friend's half-opened eyes. "What's the matter with you lot? You look like you've seen a ghost."  
  
Nobody could say anything. They just stared at the confused slayer in awe. Willow gently placed one of her fingers on her friend's neck, looking for a pulse. She held it there for at least a minute. The others in the room stood in silence, barely breathing; waiting for the outcome.  
  
"Buffy, you.you.you're." Willow couldn't bring herself to say it. Xander placed his fingers in replace of Willow's.  
  
"Oh boy." He sighed heavily, running his fingered through his long, shaggy hair.  
  
"What?" Buffy asked, she had the right to know what was wrong.  
  
"You don't have a pulse, Buffy," Willow said through tears. "You're dead." 


	2. Chapter Two

"You don't have a pulse, Buffy," Willow said through tears. "You're dead."  
  
The last two words echoed round the room in the silence that lasted for what seemed like forever. Nobody wanted to say anything; they didn't want to risk saying the wrong thing. The young woman, their friend, who was sitting infront of them, was dead; yet she was talking and aware of everything. It was against every magical and physical law that existed.  
  
"Bastards!" Giles suddenly yelled to no one in particular, wrinkling up his nose and stamping his foot on the floor. Everyone turned to look at the ex- Watcher in confusion. "The Watcher's Council, those stupid gits!"  
  
"What about them?" Willow asked.  
  
"They.they did this!" Giles cried, his hands forming fists in frustration.  
  
"But how?" Buffy asked from her bed, Spike refused to let go of her but she was feeling much better, except the fact she seemed to be dead.  
  
"They sometimes chose to deactivate Slayer's if they decide they are good enough," Giles explained, turning into walking-text-book mood.  
  
"Good enough?" Buffy didn't understand. "Good enough for what?" She had a feeling it wasn't for something nice like kittens and new clothes.  
  
"To be a slayer for ever," Spike answered. "I thought that was just a myth. That's why vampire's want to kill slayers not just run from them." He trailed off, knowing the scoobies didn't want to know the last bit.  
  
"For ever?" Xander was puzzled.  
  
"It's called the Immortal theory," Giles explained, his British accent seeming stronger than ever. "The slayer and one other she knows become an Immortal. This way she doesn't go mad with loneliness. They stay just like a normal person, except they never age and can never be killed."  
  
"They must be able to be killed somehow?" Buffy squeaked.  
  
"I'm afraid not," Giles said grimly. "One story of Sophia Dellmount, in the 1500's she became an Immortal, some demons found out. They chopped her into hundreds of tiny pieces, but kept her head. The rest of her body was feed to fish. Billions of parts of her body are all over the earth and she feels all the pain. Her head is still somewhere although it has not been seen for about a hundred years," Giles looked at the horrified expressions on the teen's faces. "Of course that was an extreme case." He added quickly.  
  
"You said somebody else, would become an Immortal as well," Buffy pointed out.  
  
Spike thought about it, the other Immortal would have gone through the same things as Buffy did, losing temperature and a heartbeat. Nobody else in the room had had that happen to them, unless.  
  
"It's me!" He said, hugging his wife tighter. "It's me, I'm an Immortal," He looked up at the five other people in the room. They all looked at him curiously.  
  
"How do we know?" Xander snapped. "You could be faking it."  
  
"Xander, shut up!" Willow growled at him. "Spike being the other Immortal makes perfect sense. He is the strongest, and already had no heartbeat and no body temperature. Plus, married."  
  
"I think we should test, to see if Spike really is an Immortal," Giles suggested. "The sun is due up in 15 minutes."  
  
~~~~~~~~~  
  
Fifteen minutes later they were all sitting on the roof outside Buffy's window. The sun was just starting to bob above the horizon. Buffy squeezed Spike's hand reassuringly. He kept turning to glance at his most treasured possession (after a certain petit blond), the chain of Amara, sitting on Buffy's desk all the way inside.  
  
"You ok?" she asked, stroking his hand lovingly.  
  
He nodded but he was obviously petrified. For over a hundred years the sun had been something to hide from, something that killed you or caused a lot of smoke. But now he was waiting for it to rise, wanting for it to cover him in the golden light without the aid of his chain. He snapped his eyes shut and squeezed Buffy's hand harder. What if he wasn't an Immortal? He would burn to a crisp.  
  
"Spike, you can open your eyes." Buffy cooed, stroking his hand. She had never seen him this scared, ever.  
  
Very slowly he opened eyes to see the yellow sun covering everything with light, including him. His skin felt tight and clammy although he could not feel the temperature Spike knew that it was hot outside. He was used to sensing things, being a vampire. But now, now everything was different. It was brighter, louder, clearer.  
  
"Wow," Was all he could say even then he about whispered it. "Wow!"  
  
"It.it.it's different." Buffy stated. "It's.I don't know how to describe it," she to could now sense things better.  
  
"More extreme," Spike finished for her.  
  
"Exactly." She said.  
  
As if by magic, Buffy suddenly was hit by a feeling that she wanted to go to sleep. The colours swirled and merged, sounds distorted and sounded far away and everything spun round and round like little cartoon birdies.  
  
She yawned and rested her head on Spike's shoulder. Five seconds later she was fast asleep. 


	3. Chapter Three

Buffy opened her eyes and sat up with a jolt. She was in a house, not one that she knew though. It was quite spacious and decorated in a very old fashioned way, maybe 1970's style.  
  
"Hello?" Buffy called, her voice echoed off the faded yellow walls.  
  
"Hello," a tiny voice said behind her. Buffy spun round to see a small girl standing behind her. The little girl was extremely pretty, with long blonde hair and piercing blue eyes.  
  
"Hi sweetie, what's your name?" Buffy asked, kneeling down so that her eye level was equal to the girls.  
  
"Thea," the little girl stated. "You're Buffy Summers."  
  
"That's right." Buffy nodded, not sure how she knew this.  
  
"You're like me, an Immortal." Thea said, looking straight into Buffy's eyes.  
  
"You're an Immortal!" Buffy exclaimed. The girl nodded.  
  
"My Mommy was a slayer and when my Mommy died I became an Immortal," Thea explained. "Not many people know that's what happens to slayer's children."  
  
"Who else changed with you?" Buffy asked. To her surprise the little girl started crying.  
  
"I didn't know anyone else except my Mommy and Daddy, and they both died." She sniffed. "I'm all alone." Buffy swept Thea into a big hug, rocking her back and forth. Buffy remembered her own Mom doing this whenever she was upset.  
  
"How long have you been an Immortal?" She asked.  
  
"Thirty years." Thea's voice was muffled by Buffy's top but she could still hear the girl.  
  
Buffy made up her mind that very moment. "Would you like to come back with me and live with me and my husband?" Thea's face lit up.  
  
"Yes please!"  
  
~~~~~  
  
With those two words Buffy opened her eyes to see her friends surrounding her, still on the porch roof.  
  
"Buffy, are you ok?" Willow asked, panic in her voice. Before Buffy could answer there was a giggling noise from Buffy's room.  
  
Everyone turned around to peered through the window. Buffy climbed back through it and went over to her bed. The gang soon followed. There was a six-year-old girl bouncing on the Slayers bed. The girl from Buffy's dream. She then realised that it wasn't really a dream, but some higher power trying to make Buffy adopt Thea.  
  
"Guys, this is Thea." Buffy introduced them. "Thea, these are my friends; Giles, Willow, Xander and Spike."  
  
Nobody spoke; they just stared at the little girl. Even though they had never seen her before, they seemed completely at ease with her and excepted her as part of the group. None of them thought that this was even remotely strange.  
  
Thea looked straight at Spike.  
  
"You're gonna be my Daddy, aren't you?" She asked him. Spike opened his mouth to speak but shut it again, what was she talking about. "You are, aren't you? You are my new Mommy's husband?"  
  
"Um.yeah." Spike couldn't believe it; this kid had just appeared out of no where. He smiled, he was a dad! "So, Princess, how old are you?" Spike asked, sitting down next to his new daughter. Thea held out six fingers. "Six!" Spike exclaimed. "You're almost all grown up!" Thea giggled.  
  
Buffy took her friends outside to explain to them about her dream and Thea. They all agreed that Buffy had made the right choice to bring Thea back with her.  
  
Not long after, Willow, Xander and Giles left; they said they would be back tomorrow but thought that Buffy, Spike and Thea would like sometime to themselves.  
  
Buffy walked sheepishly down the stairs, Thea and Spike behind her. She had to break the news to her mom about Thea.  
  
"Hi mom!" Buffy smiled as she came into the lounge, her mom was watching television.  
  
"Oh, hi sweetie. Are you feeling better?" Joyce asked. Buffy sat down next to her mom on the sofa.  
  
"Yeah. Did Giles tell you what happened?" Buffy double-checked. It would be embarrassing if her mom didn't know she was an Immortal.  
  
"He explained everything, sweetie." Joyce put her hand on her daughter's knee. "And I am so proud of you." Buffy sighed in relief. She beckoned for Spike and Thea to come in. Joyce looked up over to the door as the ex- vampire carrying a little girl entered the room.  
  
"Thea, this is your Grandma Joyce." Buffy said. Joyce blinked a few times. She looked at Buffy, confused. A wash of fear hit the ex-Slayer; Giles had left the little detail of Thea out!  
  
The little girl ran over and jumped on her Mom's lap. "Mom, Thea is an Immortal like me and Spike." Buffy explained. "And she was all alone for thirty years! So I said that I would be her new Mommy."  
  
Joyce thought about what her daughter had said and nodded. Her daughter had been very brave agreeing to look after this girl. But the girl deserved a family; she had been alone for so long. She too, although unknowing, had been affected by the mini-spell that stopped them from asking questions about the girls appearance.  
  
"So, Thea, you want to go out shopping?" Joyce asked her new granddaughter. Thea grinned and nodded.  
  
~~~~~  
  
Spike collapsed backwards onto his and Buffy's bed. He never realised that a kid needed so much stuff: a bed, clothes, toys, little hair scrunchie things, videos.  
  
Just then, a single mattress appeared in the doorway.  
  
"Little help, Spike!" A muffled voice called from the other side. Spike got up and helped lift the mattress to the space on the floor infront of the bed. Thea ran into the room, squealing. She jumped onto her mattress and started bouncing up and down on excitedly.  
  
"Um, what's this doing in here?" Spike asked.  
  
"I'm sleeping in your room tonight." Thea grinned.  
  
~~~~~  
  
Joyce passed her daughter's doorway on her way home. She opened the door a fraction and peeked inside. If she didn't know the three sleeping Immortal's conditions then she would have been worried. She would have thought they were dead.  
  
Thea looked so happy lying in the arms of her parents, having one last moment of peace. Giles had told her of the training the three of them would have to go through so they were ready to face eternity together, fighting and saving people's lives forever.  
  
She needed to make, what she could see of their lives, as happy as possible. 


	4. Chapter Four

"I have drawn up a simple plan for your training." Giles explained to Buffy, Spike and Thea. Buffy nodded, signalling for him to go on. "Spike, you will train Thea in basic self-defence and fighting techniques." Thea looked up at her daddy and grinned. "Buffy, I will be teaching you Latin." Buffy frowned.  
  
"Why do I need to learn Latin? She grumbled. "I hate languages."  
  
"You will eventually need to learn ever language spoken on earth and some major demon's native language. So we might as well start now." Giles raised an eyebrow. Buffy pouted. "There's no use pouting, you'll need to be able to communicate with anyone and everyone you meet."  
  
~~~~  
  
Tears dribbled down Buffy's cheeks as she hugged her friend's goodbye. Twenty years had past since the day when she had been up-graded from Slayer to Immortal. She knew this would be the last time she would ever see them all together again.  
  
From looking at her you would think that only a day had passed. She still looked like a 20-year-old girl, Spike still looked like he did that day and Thea still looked six.  
  
Her friends and Mom had all changed. Anya and Xander were married and had twin girls, Alexandria and Sophie, who were now seventeen. Dawn was married to a young warlock, Bailey, and had a ten-year-old son, Will. Willow and Tara were still together and Joyce and Giles were enjoying their retirement.  
  
The three Immortal's had done a fantastic job protecting Sunnydale; so good that the vampire's and demons scarcely dared to come by anymore. This was their signal to leave. They had done their job and needed to move on to a new place. They were off to England as soon as they'd paid one last visit to an old friend.  
  
I'm really sorry this was such a short chapter but I wanted it separate from the stuff just before and just after it. 


	5. Chapter Five

Spike pushed the doors to the Hyperion Hotel open. Thea held onto his hand tightly. Buffy would be coming along in a minute. She was just paying the taxi driver.  
  
A group of teenager's that were sitting on the seats in the centre of the lobby chatting, suddenly stopped and stared at them.  
  
"Angel about?" Spike asked in his casual, cocky way. Angel heard his name and came out from the office, followed by a group of adults and a green guy.  
  
"Spike!" He growled. He looked down at Thea. "Leave the girl alone!"  
  
"I don't like him, Daddy," Thea said looking from Angel to Spike.  
  
Just then, Buffy came in. Everyone in the room stared at her. They couldn't understand how she looked exactly the same as she had twenty years ago. Spike they could understand, he was a vampire, he wasn't meant to age. But Buffy should have grown old like the rest of them.  
  
"Aren't you gonna say hi?" Buffy asked. This was just the way she had thought they would react. She hadn't made any kind of contact with the L.A team since she'd Fed-Ex'd the Spike's old chain to Angel.  
  
"Buffy!" Cordelia greeted her, "you're.you're." she started but Angel cut her off.  
  
"You did this!" Angel yelled at Spike. "You turned her!" With that, he charged at Spike. Just before his reached the blond Immortal, Thea stuck out her foot, knocking the souled vampire to the floor. She sat on his back pulling his arms behind him, pinning the souled vampire to the ground.  
  
"Bad vampire!" Thea said as she slapped him round the back of the head. Everyone else in the room couldn't help burst out laughing; a six-year-old was attacking Angel. This was even better than the time Wesley was attacked by a power-walker.  
  
"Angel, I am not a vampire," Buffy explained. "And Thea, get off him."  
  
"But Mommy, he's a vampire," Thea moaned. "I have to kill him."  
  
"He's a good vampire, like Daddy was," Thea looked from Angel to her Mommy and back again; sighed and climbed off him.  
  
"Buffy, what the hell is going on?" Angel asked angrily.  
  
"Angel, I'm an Immortal. So is Spike and our daughter Thea," Buffy explained quickly, not wanting to get into any details.  
  
"You're an Immortal!" Angel couldn't believe it. He had always knew she was a powerful Slayer, but not this powerful.  
  
"What's an Immortal?" Cordelia asked.  
  
"I'll explain later," Buffy said. She turned to look at the other people in the room. "Business sure grew larger since I last saw you."  
  
"Oh, yeah," Angel snapped out of a daze, he couldn't believe that Buffy was really an Immortal, and she was with Spike of all people! "This is my son Connor," he pointed one of the boys on the seating, he looked about Buffy's original age. "This is Cordy's husband, Groo," he pointed to a balding man with purple eyes. "And their daughter, Leah." A ten-year-old girl, who also had purple eyes, waved shyly. "Fred and Gunn," Angel pointed at the couple, "Their three children, Charlie, Alanna and Molly," The other three teenagers on the seating smiled. "And you know Wesley, oh, this is Lorne," a green coloured demon with red horns waved.  
  
"You all live here?" Buffy asked.  
  
"Yeah. We didn't at first but it made the most sense to all stay together," Angel explained. "Alanna, why don't you find a room for Buffy, Spike and Thea?"  
  
"Thea, why don't you go too," Buffy ushered her daughter away. It would be easier to talk without any of the children there.  
  
"Ok Mommy," Thea followed Alanna up the stairs.  
  
"You too, Leah," Cordelia got Buffy's hint.  
  
"So when.?" Angel started to ask, but he couldn't finish the sentence.  
  
"When do you think?" Buffy replied. "Twenty years now."  
  
"I repeat Cordy's question, what's an Immortal?" Gunn asked. Fred nodded along with her husband.  
  
Wesley spent a lot longer than needed explaining the process of changing from a Slayer to Immortal and the other ways you can become an Immortal.  
  
"We thought we'd come say goodbye before we leave for England," Buffy explained.  
  
"Couldn't they help on that case?" Fred asked, speaking for the first time.  
  
"Case?" Angel had forgotten almost everything. "Oh, right. Case."  
  
"It would be perfect!" Wesley cried. Buffy and Spike looked at each other and back to Wesley. "There's this Law firm that's wanted Angel evil since he moved to LA. We have always wanted to sneak inside their hidden vaults and take this book that has some very precise incantations that." Cordelia stopped Wesley before he began another long lecture.  
  
"Basically the have heat detector so we can't go in and they have vampire detectors so Angel can't go in," she summed it up in a fraction of the time Wesley would have taken.  
  
"You forgot the pressure sensors," Groo added. "It can't take more than about eighty pounds."  
  
"That rules us out," Buffy shrugged. "Sorry, can't help."  
  
"No it doesn't," Spike corrected her. "Thea's gotta weigh less than that."  
  
"I am not letting my six year old daughter go into some evil law firm on some death mission." Spike nodded, he knew when Buffy would not be swayed.  
  
"Please just think about," Wesley asked. "It could prevent the end of the world." 


	6. Chapter Six

"Mommy," Thea called. It was late at night and she was supposed to be trying to go to sleep.  
  
"What's up, sweetie?" Buffy looked up from her book on Swedish grammar.  
  
"I want help the vampire and his friends," she announced.  
  
"How did you know about that?" Buffy patted on the bed, inviting her daughter to jump up next to her.  
  
"Leah and Alanna were telling me all the nasty things that the nasty company do," Thea explained. "They also said that the company was expecting a young French girl who has special powers tomorrow."  
  
"And.." Buffy did not like where this conversation was going.  
  
"J'ai parles francais (I speak French)," the little girl shrugged. "Et j'ai suis petit et fort (and I'm little and strong)."  
  
"Non(No)," Buffy shook her head. "Tu est ne risqer tu vivacite pas! (You are not risking your life!)"  
  
"Mais mere (But Mom!")"  
  
"Non mais (No buts.)" Just then there was a knock on the door. "Come in."  
  
"J'ai ne savoir pas tu parles fracais (I didn't know that you spoke French.)" Angel said as he entered the room.  
  
"I gotta learn all the languages," Buffy shrugged. "Downside of the job."  
  
"True." Angel nodded.  
  
"So did you come up to ask me something or is my husband being too much of a pain to stand any longer?"  
  
"Um...both really..." Angel kept looking over at Thea.  
  
"Sweetie, why don't you go down and tell your Dad to start acting nice." Thea jumped of the bed and went wondering down the hallway in search for her father.  
  
"I couldn't help over hearing what you were talking about," Angel said, quite uncomfortably.  
  
"The answers still no, if that's what you were going to ask me."  
  
"I thought so, but it would be a really big help-"  
  
"You have a son of your own, Angel," Buffy said. "You know how I feel."  
  
He shock his head. "You see, I sent Connor in there when he was younger, before we knew about the heat sensors. He saw things, things that have the possibility to destroy the world."  
  
"Destroy? As in completely?"  
  
"Completely," Angel answered.  
  
Buffy sat in thought for a few minutes. She didn't really want Thea to go into this evil law firm but if it helped save the world and Thea wanted to go. Then maybe.  
  
"Ok," she nodded slowly. "But only if Thea is totally, 100 percent ok with it."  
  
"Done," Angel nodded as he started to walk towards the door.  
  
"I found Daddy!" Thea announced as she appeared from the lift, dragging Spike by the sleeve. 


	7. Chapter Seven

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Buffy asked for the 43rd time since the night before.  
  
"I'm sure," Thea answer for the 44th time.  
  
"You do know that it's going to be really dangerous and you'll be all on your own for quite some time?"  
  
"I know, Mom!" she sighed.  
  
Just then, Spike popped his head round the door. " A pr?t?(ready?)"  
  
"Oui, Papa." Thea held onto his hand. "Bye, Mommy, see you later."  
  
"Bye," Buffy called sadly. She hated watching her daughter going off to fight. But she couldn't follow; she was too well known by Wolfram and Hart to get anywhere near the building, let alone inside.  
  
~~~  
  
"Hello and welcome to Wolfram and Hart law service, how may I help you?" A cheerful receptionist asked Spike. She was obviously a demon, no human could ever be that chirpy.  
  
"Bonjour, ma petite fille est ici voir Lilah Morgan (Hello, my little girl is here to see Lilah Morgan)," Spike told her in a perfect French accent.  
  
The receptionist looked blankly at him. She obviously didn't speak French. Spike picked up Thea and sat her on the desk. The woman nodded, she had been told that Lilah was expecting a young French girl.  
  
"Down there and the lift up to the twentieth floor," she pointed, passing them a security pass each, hoping that he would understand her.  
  
Spike nodded as he helped Thea climb down and started off in the direction pointed.  
  
"Dass war sehr leicht! (That was very easy!)" Thea exclaimed once they had entered the lift. She switched to speaking German without any problem.  
  
"Ja,(Yes)" Spike agreed. "Obwohl, sein wir vorsichtig mussen. (Although we must be careful.)"  
  
Thea nodded as they arrived not on the 20th floor as instructed but basement level seven. This is where they would find the files needed to discover what Wolfram and Hart's plan for Angel, his friends and the rest of the world.  
  
"I have to go now," Spike whispered to Thea. "Be very careful and if anyone tries anything, just run."  
  
"I'll be good." The little girl smiled at him. Sometimes Spike could see flashes of the grown woman that Thea really was. But not very often. It was like she was frozen in time and her mind only saw the world through the eyes of a six year old.  
  
"Be careful," the blonde vampire instructed her before climbing up in the air vent where Leah was waiting for him.  
  
"Buffy's waiting for you down the other end," the ten year old instructed Spike. She had been sent as the others didn't know how much weight the air conditioning system would hold. It seemed logical to send the lightest and smallest member of their unconventional 'family'.  
  
"Lead the way."  
  
~~~~ 


	8. Chapter Eight

Thea wandered down and round the corridors, following the map in her mind.  
  
It wasn't far now until she would hopefully find the alarmed room, which contained the prophecy. She didn't know for definite if it was even there and the rooms may have been moved about but it was worth a try.  
  
She just had one more corner to turn when he came. A man, well she thought it was a man, draped in a black rode, almost floating along the ground, came drifting along the corridor.  
  
Thea pressed herself against the wall, slightly out of sight. If he was turning right them she was going to be in big trouble.  
  
"Bloody hell," she muttered under her breath. "If anyone is listening, help me!"  
  
From the air vents above, Leah heard the younger girls whispers. She scuttled along silently to the space where the vents joined a series of tunnels. In these tunnels hide Buffy, Spike and Wesley.  
  
"Wes, can you make Thea invisible right now?" She hissed.  
  
He nodded, understanding the emergency. With only a few muttered words the spell was cast. Leah saw this happen and crawled back to find out if Thea had moved.  
  
The six year old was no longer pressed against the wall; at least Leah couldn't see her. But she could hear her shallow unneeded breathing. The spell had worked and just in time to. The cloaked man had just floated right past her.  
  
Thea leant all her weight against the wall in relief. To her surprise, the wall was no longer solid but a gooey liquid. Thea lost her balance and fell.  
  
+++  
  
It was dark the other side of the wall. Too dark for even Thea and her extra-sensitive eyes to be able to see.  
  
"Help," she whispered in hope. Nothing.  
  
She waited for a few minutes as her eyes slowly adjusted. Unlike a normal person, her eyes could adjust quicker to light and dark as well as it being a lot clear with even some colours.  
  
The room was very small with only one filing cabinet in the corner.  
  
"Hello," a girl in a red dress came out from the behind the cabinet.  
  
Thea smiled, this wasn't so scary after all. "Hello, I'm looking for a file. Can you help me?"  
  
"I know why you are here, Immortal," the girl said in the same dreamy voice. "You are here for this."  
  
She held out an orange/brown coloured folder. Thea took it and starred at the girl and then at the folder; the sticky label on the front read - For Thea.  
  
"How-" The little girl in the red dress cut in.  
  
"Just think of it as a blessing, you are the only one who can find the answers. Now GO!"  
  
With the last word the world went bendy and swirled until it all faded black  
  
++++  
  
Thea's eyes flickered open. She was sat in the middle on the Angel Investigation lobby. He first thought was - 'where is everyone?' Then she remembered the trip to Wolfram and Hart and the people waiting in air vents and hollows for her.  
  
"Hello!" She called out. "Hello!"  
  
It was no use, the hotel was foolishly empty.  
  
++++  
  
A few blocks away, Buffy could feel something.  
  
"She's back!" She suddenly yelled from their hiding place in the tunnels.  
  
"Who's back?" Spike turned to look at his wife.  
  
"Thea!" Buffy climbed over a few of the others waiting there. She needed to be back, they all did. "She's back a the hotel."  
  
Spike nodded, realising what she meant, he ran after her leaving the others to think about it.  
  
Neither of them stopped running through the complex zigzag of sewer tunnels until they had reached to hotel. They had not been there before and should therefore not know the way. But they did, it was like a sixth sense tracking device.  
  
"Thea!" Buffy called out to her daughter as they burst through the doors.  
  
"Mommy!" Came a happy reply. She ran into her mother's arms. "Mommy, I did it! I got the files Mommy!"  
  
Spike burst through the doors and nearly ploughed into his wife and daughter. "My girls!" He joined in the group hug.  
  
"Mom! Dad!" Thea wriggled away from them and ran back to the seating. She returned to them, the folder clasped in her hands.  
  
"This little girl gave me this and she said it was meant to be for me and nobody else!" Thea explained, jumping around excitedly.  
  
Buffy took the files from her daughter. "I'm gonna give these to Wesley to decipher." She opened the file and glanced over the text, if you could call it text.  
  
"I think we could be here a while," Spike said peering over Buffy's shoulder.  
  
"I wanna see!" Thea demanded.  
  
"You can see it when's it's in English, honey," Buffy compromised. "For now we'll put them on Wes' desk. 


	9. Chapter Nine

"Can I see it yet?"  
  
Wesley rubbed his temples, he'd had a constant headache for a week, ever since he's been given the job of translating the texts that Thea had recovered from Wolfram and Hart. Fred helped when she could but she had other jobs to do and a family to look after.  
  
"Go on then." He threw a photocopy of the coded files down to the persistent girl who'd made a second home camping out in his office.  
  
Thea remained silent for a few minutes before asking, "what does in-cin-er- rate mean?"  
  
Wesley let out a deep breathe before answering. "It's like burning something until only the ashes are left. Why do you ask?"  
  
"Cause that's what this says I can do to vampires with my mind, cool."  
  
The ex-watchers eyes grew wide. "You-you can read it?"  
  
Thea looked up at him and grinned. "Yeap. Of course."  
  
Wesley promptly fainted.  
  
~~~~  
  
Thea skipped happily out of the office, through the lobby and upstairs in search of her Barbie. On the seating in the lobby Molly was busy cleaning one of her brother's wounded arms.  
  
"I said 'wait for Angel', but would you listen? No!" She pulled the bandage too tight causing Charlie to hiss.  
  
"Ok, I get it!" He replied in an angry tone. "But it was Conner's idea."  
  
"That's it, blame me."  
  
Charlie and Molly looked round to see Conner supporting a hobbling Alanna entering the hotel. He helped her over to the seating and lowered her down. She winced in pain but made no fuss; a sprained ankle wasn't exactly the worst injury she'd ever received.  
  
"Well, you're the one with the super powers and you're the one who went with Angel last time to fight them and said they were easy to kill!"  
  
"Ok, so I was wrong," Conner admitted. "The Jessep demons in Leah's vision were slightly bigger than the ones we fought before."  
  
"The ones you fought before were babies!" Charlie snapped back.  
  
"Talking about Leah," Molly changed the subject quickly. "Anyone check on how she is?"  
  
"Sleeping," Alanna said. "Conner checked." She smiled at her boyfriend. Conner returned the smile and leant in to kiss her. Charlie coughed loudly, separating the couple from their hormonal trance.  
  
The four teenagers had been so caught up in their conversation, they hadn't noticed Thea's several traipses from upstairs to the office and back again.  
  
"Do you know why Wesley's asleep?" she asked them.  
  
"Asleep?" Charlie repeated.  
  
"Yeah, I was reading him some of this and he fell asleep." She handed him the photocopy.  
  
Molly rushed over to the office and disappeared inside.  
  
"How could you read this?" Conner asked, looking at it over the other boy's shoulder. "It's not even words let alone English."  
  
Thea frowned at him. "Of course it's in English, silly."  
  
"He's out cold, guys,"" Molly called out. "Maybe we should call the adults?"  
  
"Will do, sis." Charlie got up and flicked a switch on the wall twice. All the lights in the hotel flicked off then on again. This signalled that everyone was needed but it wasn't a matter of life (or unlife) and death.  
  
One by one everyone appeared downstairs. Angel and Spike easily carried the unconscious ex-watcher out of the stuffy office and into the lobby. They lay him down on the floor and hoped that he would be able to explain himself when he woke up.  
  
As if on cue, Wesley began to stir. "Thea?" he murmured. She pushed her way to the front of the crowd and leant over him.  
  
"I'm here," she said proudly.  
  
He starred at her for a minute before groaning and sitting up. "Why did nobody tell me that she could read the files?"  
  
The others looked at him, completely puzzled.  
  
"They didn't know," Thea explained. "Nobody would let me look at them. The little girl told me that they were only for me and nobody else but you wouldn't let me look!" She crossed her arms and huffed.  
  
"We're sorry, honey," Buffy cooed, picking up daughter up. "But could you read it out to us?"  
  
Thea nodded and Fred passed her the copy that she'd been working on before being called out on another case.  
  
Thea cleared her throat and began to read. "Immortal's are not just what people think. They have many hidden powers that are normally never discovered. An example of these are the power to incinerate vampires with the power of the mind. Like the magical bird, the Phoenix, Immortal's can heal both humans and demons with their tears. Immortal's blood is rare and almost priceless and is widely sort after by many trading in the black arts. There are currently 66 Immortal's known in existence. Forty live on Earth and battle demons, ten work in other dimension, three are unaware that they are Immortals and thirteen are unaccounted for." She finished and waited for some kind of praise or approval but she received none.  
  
The hotel remained unnaturally quiet.  
  
"It seemed a bit..." Gunn started, breaking the silence but he trailed off, not wanting to insult anyone.  
  
"Simple," Wesley, Angel and Spike finished for him.  
  
"Exactly."  
  
"Well, maybe it was meant to be like that?" Wesley guessed. "I mean, if it was indeed written for Thea then maybe they were written so that she understood them."  
  
"What about those files I found?" Conner asked. "They had some seriously heavy stuff in them."  
  
Thea double checked the paper to make sure she hadn't missed anything. On the back, some new words started to appear. "Look!" She held it up so the adults and teenagers could see.  
  
"Um... Thea, honey, it's blank," Spike explained.  
  
"No, it's not!" She protested. "It says- fake."  
  
"You mean the files were a fake?" Angel asked.  
  
The writing on the back of the paper changed to 'yes'.  
  
Thea nodded and yawned.  
  
"Come on," Spike picked up his daughter. "Time for bed for you."  
  
"But I'm not, *yawn*, tired."  
  
Spike raised an eyebrow at her and carried her upstairs. 


End file.
